News

York pilgrimage to honour martyrs

A PILGRIMAGE to honour martyr St Margaret Clitherow and 50 other martyrs associated with York will take place in York on Saturday, March 29.

The homage will start at 1.30pm with a Solemn Mass in the Catholic Church of St Wilfrid in Duncombe Place, followed at 3.15pm by a procession through the streets, past the Margaret Clitherow shrine in Shambles and across Ouse Bridge, the place of her execution.

The procession will return across Lendal Bridge to St Wilfrid’s Church, where Benediction will take place.

This is the fourth annual pilgrimage, organised by the Latin Mass Society with St Wilfrid’s parish.

Comments (4)

Get your facts right: Margaret Clitherow WASN'T executed. She died under torture because she refused to enter a plea to treason. I suspect the rest of these so-called 'martyrs' were in fact merely traitors, like Clitherow plotting to over the legitimate government of England. I can see why these misguided fools want to try and alter history - not least because they are under orders from the Pope to do so, but I wish the Press would for once get their facts right. Margaret Clitherow didn't die for her religious beliefs: she died because she hid two Spanish agents in her house at the time of the Armada and, ultimately, to prevent his husband's shop being confiscated. A simple traitor - and a greedy one to boot.

Get your facts right: Margaret Clitherow WASN'T executed. She died under torture because she refused to enter a plea to treason. I suspect the rest of these so-called 'martyrs' were in fact merely traitors, like Clitherow plotting to over the legitimate government of England. I can see why these misguided fools want to try and alter history - not least because they are under orders from the Pope to do so, but I wish the Press would for once get their facts right. Margaret Clitherow didn't die for her religious beliefs: she died because she hid two Spanish agents in her house at the time of the Armada and, ultimately, to prevent his husband's shop being confiscated. A simple traitor - and a greedy one to boot.Grumpy Old Man

Grumpy Old Man wrote:
Get your facts right: Margaret Clitherow WASN'T executed. She died under torture because she refused to enter a plea to treason. I suspect the rest of these so-called 'martyrs' were in fact merely traitors, like Clitherow plotting to over the legitimate government of England. I can see why these misguided fools want to try and alter history - not least because they are under orders from the Pope to do so, but I wish the Press would for once get their facts right. Margaret Clitherow didn't die for her religious beliefs: she died because she hid two Spanish agents in her house at the time of the Armada and, ultimately, to prevent his husband's shop being confiscated. A simple traitor - and a greedy one to boot.

Spanish agents and traitors? Evidence please!

Margaret Clitherow was executed in 1586. The Spanish Armada wasn't until 2 years later, in 1588

I realise this is a place for opinions but it would be nice if a few facts were associated with them.

Margaret Clitherow was executed by being pressed to death for hiding Catholic priests. She was a well known member of the Catholic community in York at the time.

The Wikipedia entry is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Margaret_Cl
itherow

[quote][p][bold]Grumpy Old Man[/bold] wrote:
Get your facts right: Margaret Clitherow WASN'T executed. She died under torture because she refused to enter a plea to treason. I suspect the rest of these so-called 'martyrs' were in fact merely traitors, like Clitherow plotting to over the legitimate government of England. I can see why these misguided fools want to try and alter history - not least because they are under orders from the Pope to do so, but I wish the Press would for once get their facts right. Margaret Clitherow didn't die for her religious beliefs: she died because she hid two Spanish agents in her house at the time of the Armada and, ultimately, to prevent his husband's shop being confiscated. A simple traitor - and a greedy one to boot.[/p][/quote]Spanish agents and traitors? Evidence please!
Margaret Clitherow was executed in 1586. The Spanish Armada wasn't until 2 years later, in 1588
I realise this is a place for opinions but it would be nice if a few facts were associated with them.
Margaret Clitherow was executed by being pressed to death for hiding Catholic priests. She was a well known member of the Catholic community in York at the time.
The Wikipedia entry is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Margaret_Cl
itherowMilkandTwo

I wouldn't put too much faith in that Wikipaedia article. It's not exactly impartial ("She then became a friend of the persecuted Roman Catholic population....."), nor is it entirely accurate. For example, it says that she refused to plead "so as to prevent a trial that would entail her children being made to testify, and therefore being subjected to torture". It wasn't the practice in Elizabethan England to torture people unless they actually stood accused of a felony, and the authorities already believed them to be guilty of it (which doesn't necessarily mean they actually were, of course). Witnesses weren't tortured to confirm that they were telling the truth, as the Wiki statement implies. Grumpy Old Man is correct - technically speaking, Margaret Clitherow wasn't executed. The idea of 'peine forte et dure', to use the legal term, was to force the victim to enter a plea. Admittedly, it was fully accepted that they would die if they refused to do so, and the legal distinction was academic to the victim, but this was torture, not a method of execution. As for the treason, see the 1585 Act Against Jesuits and Seminarists:

"Every person which ... shall wittingly and willingly receive, relieve, comfort, aid, or maintain any such Jesuit, seminary priest, or other priest, deacon, or religious or ecclesiastical person.....knowing him to be a Jesuit, seminary priest, or other such priest, deacon, or religious or ecclesiastical person, as is aforesaid, shall also for such offence be adjudged a felon ......and suffer death, lose, and forfeit, as in case of one attainted of felony.".

Disclaimer - I'm not commenting on the merits, or otherwise, of the line taken by the authorities in 1586, just presenting the facts.

I wouldn't put too much faith in that Wikipaedia article. It's not exactly impartial ("She then became a friend of the persecuted Roman Catholic population....."), nor is it entirely accurate. For example, it says that she refused to plead "so as to prevent a trial that would entail her children being made to testify, and therefore being subjected to torture". It wasn't the practice in Elizabethan England to torture people unless they actually stood accused of a felony, and the authorities already believed them to be guilty of it (which doesn't necessarily mean they actually were, of course). Witnesses weren't tortured to confirm that they were telling the truth, as the Wiki statement implies. Grumpy Old Man is correct - technically speaking, Margaret Clitherow wasn't executed. The idea of 'peine forte et dure', to use the legal term, was to force the victim to enter a plea. Admittedly, it was fully accepted that they would die if they refused to do so, and the legal distinction was academic to the victim, but this was torture, not a method of execution. As for the treason, see the 1585 Act Against Jesuits and Seminarists:
"Every person which ... shall wittingly and willingly receive, relieve, comfort, aid, or maintain any such Jesuit, seminary priest, or other priest, deacon, or religious or ecclesiastical person.....knowing him to be a Jesuit, seminary priest, or other such priest, deacon, or religious or ecclesiastical person, as is aforesaid, shall also for such offence be adjudged a felon ......and suffer death, lose, and forfeit, as in case of one attainted of felony.".
Disclaimer - I'm not commenting on the merits, or otherwise, of the line taken by the authorities in 1586, just presenting the facts.Caecilius

The 1585 Act it was England's equivalent of Germany's Nuremburg laws against the Jews. Only this time the Jews were all agents of communism and Russia. Total nonense, of course, but it served the regime at the time, as it did Tudor England.

I don't think it is biased to refer to post reformation English Catholics as persecuted. The death penalty for going to your church seems a bit harsh in any age

Interesting points, Caecilius, thanks.
The 1585 Act it was England's equivalent of Germany's Nuremburg laws against the Jews. Only this time the Jews were all agents of communism and Russia. Total nonense, of course, but it served the regime at the time, as it did Tudor England.
I don't think it is biased to refer to post reformation English Catholics as persecuted. The death penalty for going to your church seems a bit harsh in any ageMilkandTwo